Honourable senators, you may be surprised to learn that, despite living in Nova Scotia, my sea legs are not what I had hoped. On anything but the calmest of water, I find myself being the source of amusement versus assistance on the deck of a boat, as I spend most of my time involuntarily feeding fish.

That’s just one of the reasons why I admire the courageous and hard-working women and men who go to work on the cold, dangerous seas, delivering some $2.4 billion of seafood exports from our province to more than 60 countries every year.

I’m equally grateful for the ingenuity that makes their jobs safer and more sustainable. One such ingenious innovator is Marc d’Entremont of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Marc’s family has fished for generations. While still in his twenties, he co-owned three 65-foot trawlers and fished groundfish quotas off Pubnico. This type of fishing uses traditional trawling gear — a large scoop-shaped net that drags the ocean floor. It takes a lot of time and fuel and, in addition to the targeted species, brings in a lot of bycatch that just has to be thrown overboard. It can also often result in lost gear and ecosystem damage.

In his thirties, Marc left the family business and turned his attention to completely redesigning the methods used for ocean trawling. His new company, Katchi, has developed a flying trawl system that uses depth sounders and AI to ensure the fishing nets do not touch the seabed. Katchi is also working to herd targeted species while deterring unwanted ones. Working with partners, they’ve designed an uncrewed service vessel to scout for fish in surrounding waters, delivering the precise location of targeted species. Their innovative methods are reducing fuel consumption, ecosystem damage and the risk of lost gear in the ocean.

Katchi promises to deliver a much more cost-efficient harvest to fishers and a much more sustainable fishery. In Marc’s words, it’s all pros and no cons, and global experts agree. Katchi won the Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge prize and previously led a $3.3-million award from Canada’s Ocean Supercluster.

More than ever, we are challenged to simultaneously deliver improved economic, environmental and ecological results. Some believe that these are competing priorities. I do not — if we are willing to change how we do things: change our basic assumptions, practices and, sometimes, our rules and regulations. Achieving these improved results demands us to be highly innovative so that we can continue to deliver the conditions necessary for future generations to prosper and thrive.

Thank you, colleagues.